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Saturday, 24 August 2013

Movies Review and Trailer: Madras Cafe

Madras Cafe: The filmCast: John Abraham, Nargis Fakhri, Siddharth BasuDirection: Shoojit SircarRating: ***1/2
‘Madras Cafe’ is an engaging tale. Commendable mostly because Shoojit
Sircar manages to weave an interesting plot and well-executed conflict
stories are a rarity in Bollywood.
Any political thriller runs the risk of being biased and I am sure
there will be an equal share of viewers who will be offended by the
alleged pro-state stance taken by the director. To be fair to him,
however, the narrative at various times does mention that every one has
their version of the truth and it just depends on perspective.
Or like our protagonist reiterates, one man’s revolutionary is another man’s terrorist.
The director has also made it quite clear that the Indian state was
quite ambiguous in its approach and subsequent resolution during the
crisis. Prejudices aside, I am just looking at the cinematic merits of
the film.
The film provides a comprehensive context to the Sri Lankan civil war
and a taut narrative ensures that the pace does not slacken. I would
assume the biggest challenge for the director was to sustain the tension
in a story where we already know the outcome of the assassination
attempt.
And on that account, Sircar delivers superbly. The action and the gun
battle sequences are brilliantly filmed where he uses close-ups,
black-and-whites and still photography to great effect.
The inconsistencies that standout like a sore thumb – a war
correspondent needs little persuasion to divulge her sources and the LTF
operatives wear cyanide capsules around their neck, but it doesn’t take
too much of an effort for the police to break the ones who have been
captured.
When they are trying to foil the assassination bid, they catch a
chemical engineer who shares an integral trivia about the bombs that
have been custom made for the attack. The RAW agents have this crucial
information and are working against all odds to try and prevent the
attack, shouldn’t they first share this unique character of the bomb
with the security officials rather than wait for our hero to get there?
John Abraham may not be good with emotions but he has got the right
body language for a covert army operative and is immensely convincing.
Nargis Fakhri fortunately doesn’t have much to do but I am tired of
journalists being stereotyped as incessantly cigarette-smoking women, as
if that’s all they do.
Siddharth Basu and Dibang are effective in their debut roles.
‘Madras Cafe’ undoubtedly makes for an engrossing watch, a little
more attention to detail and the film would have been brilliant.